Red Planet

Red Planet (2000)

Kung-fu robot on Mars hunting Val Kilmer and Tom Sizemore while bugs create oxygen and Carrie Ann Moss pushes every single button and dial on a giant spaceship… why not.

Despite the somewhat questionable science of this one––i’m no expert but I have questions––Red Planet is surprising decent. It’s nothing special and breaks no new ground, and at its time of release I preferred Mission To Mars, but rewatching it now, I enjoyed it.

The film follows a crew as they set of to Mars to find out why its not creating oxygen the way It was meant too after Earth put a plan in motion to make Mars liveable. But… by the time they get there everything goes Tango Uniform (I looked it up, apparently it means Tits Up in military speak)

The crew are left stranded on Mars with a psychopathic robot who wants to play army games with them, while Bowman (Moss) is trying to keep the giant wrecked starship in orbit so it can make the return trip.

Mars looks pretty cool, and the effects are fine for a very early 2000s sci-fi. I liked the design of AMEE (the insane robot) and Val Kilmer and Tom Sizemore’s interaction kept the surface stuff ticking along (Despite some apparent on set arguments) The plot was pretty basic despite trying to inject some science into it, and on retrospect I think that was the right approach. The movie didn’t need to be more, it just needed to be entertaining with what it done, and I think it was despite maybe taking itself a tiny bit to seriously at times. 

The Ice Storm was pretty wild and looked great, and some of the stuff with AMEE was surprisingly gory. The science vs religion was carefully handled and was probably the best part of the movie for me. The question of what faith really means when it comes to survival being a big topic within the film.

All in all, its average, which when there’s very little coming out in modern times as far as sci-fi’s concerned––and no i’m not counting superhero movies––i’ll take it. It’s an easy watch with just enough suspense to keep everything moving. It’s a somewhat typical Hollywood movie made in a time when I liked typical Hollywood Movies. If someone wants to tell me its awful, I won’t argue, but I thought it was fine.